Revamping Yahoo's Homepage

June 10, 2002 7:42 AM

Revamping Yahoo's Homepage "The redesign is being fueled partly by advertisers, which are increasingly demanding more real estate on highly visible spots such as Yahoo's home page. Advertisers are irked that they can only buy minimal exposure on the main page of a site that draws a massive audience."
posted by Irontom (20 comments total)

My favorite quote from the article:

"The site will retain much of the current flavor, color and style but will include fewer links and clutter.

The simplified home page is meant to accentuate advertisements" (emphasis added)

Because, you know, I am just f'ing going insane due to lack of exposure to advertisements in my life.
posted by Irontom at 7:44 AM on June 10, 2002

A clear case of Yahoo failing to understand the needs and desires of their audience - probably because that, while advertisers are vocal and personalized, audience is passive and largely anonymous. This will be ultimately self-defeating, since audience will ultimately decline, thereby generating fewer pageviews, thereby reducing the (perceived and measurable) effectiveness of the ads, and thereby pissing off advertisers even further.

Speaking as a marketing exec, web advertising is a sumphole of Kongian proportions, 10x worse than print adverts. First thing I did when I was put in charge of my ad budget was kill web and print.

Yahoo, you would think, would understand the nature of their own environment better than most, but apparently that's not the case.
posted by UncleFes at 8:01 AM on June 10, 2002

Ah, Yahoo, the poster child for "good" site design.

Too bad the redesign is being driven by advertisers, not usablility. Yet another reason to stick with google.

On preview, Ditto what UncleFes said.
posted by jazon at 8:06 AM on June 10, 2002

UncleFes - they brought in a new chief executive about a year ago. He's Hollywood vet, and is very focused on bucks. The original founders of Yahoo may understand their audience, but I dont think this guy cares.
posted by Irontom at 8:12 AM on June 10, 2002

the page does not "draw" a massive audience. for the most part, a mass of ignorant, non-reading, computer owners just sort of falls into the page because they don't know they have a choice and wouldn't care even if they did.
posted by quonsar at 8:22 AM on June 10, 2002

Internet dead. UncleFes arrested. Film at 11.

I know it's like some holy grail of Neilsen usability, but how many people really use the Yahoo front page anymore? I know I haven't for years. Clearly many people start up there, but I bet many of them travel well-rutted paths to their real surfing. Say, Yahoo Mail, or a news or sports page.

Now, Yahoo may find that putting an ad on that page finally gives a lot of those people a reason to change their startup page. Or they may find they get actual impressions. ("17 today, boss!") Either way, I'm not sure they really lose.
posted by dhartung at 8:23 AM on June 10, 2002

they brought in a new chief executive

While I laud the guy's dedication to internal organization (corporate disorganization is the overwhelming rule, and the bigger the company, the more disorganized it is), Yahoo has/had a successful model for its business and a revenue stream - it's foolishness to try and change not only the corporate culture but the scope of services and audience demand. That's ego, there.

Internet dead. UncleFes arrested. Film at 11.

::Fes looks through bars across the walkway at denizen of opposite cell::

Prisoner: Hi! You play chess?
Fes: (pause) Kaczynski?
posted by UncleFes at 8:32 AM on June 10, 2002

Yahoo! has been progressively abandoning their design by toying with the look of the 'feature' box below the search line, and their overuse of flash on the front page and throughout the site. Sigh... why must all portals look the same (like msn.com)? I do admit that it does need to be redesigned, to some extent. All the tiny little links under the title are frustrating and hard to use. A design that keeps with tradition but is more user friendly is a good compromise, and including advertisers and more 'pretty colors' is a sad reality of the web today.

I blame this whole thing on the simple fact that Microsoft sets www.msn.com as the default home page in Internet Explorer, and millions of users are too stupid to change it, so they start thinking MSN is the "Internet".
posted by insomnyuk at 8:48 AM on June 10, 2002

dhartung: My guess, based on absolutely no information, is that at least 90 percent of Yahoo's directory users start at http://www.yahoo.com.

After what Yahoo did to EGroups, nothing it does to change the site would surprise me. There was a time when the company had as much geek-cred as Google does today, but I guess the dot-com bust has left them desperate for new ways to milk the site for revenue.
posted by rcade at 9:04 AM on June 10, 2002

So can anyone explain to me how Yahoo is supposed to pay it's bills?

While you're at it, explain to me how recording artists are supposed to pay their bills if listeners demand free downloads.

And if you have the time, tell me why pharmaceutical companies will spend money to discover new drugs if they can't profit from their discoveries.

Oh, and why the brightest of our college grads will choose to be doctors if they're not permitted to make oodles of money.

And tell me why people will continue to work and save money if they're not permitted to leave it to their children.

And after you tell me, tell Fidel Castro and every other crackpot socialist who, after they get into power by promising everyone everything, all seem to oversee the decline and collapse of their economies.
posted by mikegre at 9:06 AM on June 10, 2002

millions of users are too stupid to change it, so they start thinking MSN is the "Internet".

When my cable guy installed my cable modem, he handed me a cd with AOL on it and insisted that I install AOL software. I told him I didn't want AOL. He firmly believed that you needed AOL to view the internet.
posted by mrhappy at 9:07 AM on June 10, 2002

Clearly, you haven't been listening, mikegre.
posted by rushmc at 10:09 AM on June 10, 2002

Yahoo and Semel lost my confidence when they laid everyone off...I mean the people who were the coders and worker bees who had been there since the beginning. Semel is a useless hollywood flack and ever since he came on board, the company hasn't been worth the ink used to print up his millions of stock options.

There was a massive brain drain at Yahoo, with them firing any employee who had the potential to sell stock, which meant that they fired most of the people who understood the tech, as 90% of it was hand-rolled and mostly undocumented.

Screw Yahoo. I hope this drives them further into the ground, I couldn't be happier than to see Semel and his concepts go flaming into oblivion. That rat bastard.
posted by dejah420 at 10:29 AM on June 10, 2002

Yuck, a little too crammed for me....
posted by punkrockrat at 10:40 AM on June 10, 2002

WTF. That beta (thanks for the link punkrockrat) looks more cluttered than the current version. Fsck that.
posted by insomnyuk at 10:46 AM on June 10, 2002

dhartung: how many people really use the Yahoo front page anymore?

We ping it all the time to test our network equipment... really not what you meant, though! For the few useful things Yahoo does, it's best of breed in none.

mikegre: So can anyone explain to me how Yahoo is supposed to pay it's bills?

If it doesn't do anything useful or in demand, if there's no invisible hand guiding us there... bye bye Yahoo. Their continued health is up to them, not us.

While you're at it, explain to me how recording artists are supposed to pay their bills if listeners demand free downloads.

Think of the RIAA as an inefficient, hostile governmental agency charging an 80% income tax.
It just happens to be private. How about 50-cent CD-quality downloads, only the songs we want, with no expiration and full fair use... with 2/3 of that directly to the artist?

And if you have the time, tell me why pharmaceutical companies will spend money to discover new drugs if they can't profit from their discoveries.

Decrease cost of sales (i.e. constant television advertising). Go back to the old days, when the _doctor_ would prescribe the drug.

Oh, and why the brightest of our college grads will choose to be doctors if they're not permitted to make oodles of money.

Work for the insurance companies? That's where the money's going :-)

And tell me why people will continue to work and save money if they're not permitted to leave it to their children.

1) There's more than one motivation for going to work; 2) most people won't be affected; 3) the children will still have at least one reason to go to work; 4) many higher-minded people set up foundations.

And after you tell me, tell Fidel Castro and every other crackpot socialist who, after they get into power by promising everyone everything, all seem to oversee the decline and collapse of their economies.

Agreed; the sad fate of all crackpots.

I guess the theme here is that the "sink or swim" exhortations toward common people should also apply to heirs and corporations.
posted by kurumi at 11:17 AM on June 10, 2002

I want to marry kurumi.
posted by anildash at 11:23 AM on June 10, 2002

I can't wait to see your children. :)
posted by mikegre at 11:30 AM on June 10, 2002

Is there a phrase for when web sites jump the shark? "Gone yahoo" would seem to fit...
posted by kerplunk at 2:45 PM on June 10, 2002

First to attack you:

So can anyone explain to me how Yahoo is supposed to pay it's bills?

No one cares about Yahoo, it sucks.

While you're at it, explain to me how recording artists are supposed to pay their bills if listeners demand free downloads.

Concerts

And if you have the time, tell me why pharmaceutical companies will spend money to discover new drugs if they can't profit from their discoveries.

Well, I don't know about companies, but there are lots of reasons for individuals to do it: Altruism, Glory, government funding

Oh, and why the brightest of our college grads will choose to be doctors if they're not permitted to make oodles of money.

The same reasons they might want to get into pharmasutical research

And tell me why people will continue to work and save money if they're not permitted to leave it to their children.

So they can spend it while they are alive. I sure as hell arn't working for money that will only be enjoyed when I'm dead! (Bill gates has worked pretty hard, and he only plans to leave each child $1 million, and is for the estate tax)

And after you tell me, tell Fidel Castro and every other crackpot socialist who, after they get into power by promising everyone everything, all seem to oversee the decline and collapse of their economies.

Because they were crackpots?

Now for your opponents:

Decrease cost of sales (i.e. constant television advertising). Go back to the old days, when the _doctor_ would prescribe the drug.

Um, If the drug companies didn't advertize on TV, they would have less money, not more. How stupid can you be? Why do you think they put ads on TV? for an ego boost?

Doctors proscribe drugs, but they don't make new ones.
posted by delmoi at 5:32 PM on June 10, 2002